Harold Brent Wallis was born in 1898 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eva (née Blum) and Jacob Walinsky, Eastern European Jews, who changed their surname to Wallis.[1][2] His family moved in 1922 to Los Angeles, California, where he found work as part of the publicity department at Warner Bros.in 1923. Within a few years, Wallis became involved in the production end of the business and would eventually become head of production at Warners. In a career that spanned more than fifty years, he was involved with the production of more than 400 feature-length movies.